O contributie importanta in fundamentarea conceptului PLE o Stephen
Downes, care in numarul din octombrie 2005 a eLearn
Magazine, publica articolul e-Learning
2.0: "The e-learning application, therefore, begins to look very much
like a blogging tool. It represents one node in a web of content, connected
to other nodes and content creation services used by other students. It becomes,
not an institutional or corporate application, but a personal learning center,
where content is reused and remixed according to the student's own needs and
interests. It becomes, indeed, not a single application, but a collection of
interoperating applications—an environment rather than a system."

The
number of computers, especially in the rural areas, should be increased at least
at the value of the EU indicator of number of computers connected per 100 pupils:
11.3.

More
computers should be located in classrooms, in libraries, in teachers rooms.
61% of EU25 schools provide computers in classrooms.

Investigate the
possibility to provide to schools presentation toolkits consisting of
( wireless ) computer / laptop, projector and interactive whiteboard for be
used in the classrooms.

The
provision of other ICT equipments could be taken into account: whiteboards,
laptops, printers, projectors, PDAs, scanners, digital video cameras.

Broadband
access for schools should be provided - now 44% of Romanian schools are connected,
while 67% in EU25.

Assure ICT support
and maintenance: extend the possibility that schools sign contracts for ICT
support or maintenance with professional ICT service providers.

Create a website
for ICT support ( on MERY or MCTI websites ):

with tutorials,

FAQ ( both could
be organized as wiki ),

live chat,

discussions forums,

online courses
for administrators, technical staff, teachers who want to improve their
knowledge,

presentation of free and open source solutions,

download area,

blogs of practitioners,

RSS feeds.

A methodology
and a specific online integrated system are needed to the ongoing monito-ring
and evaluation quantitative and qualitative of ICT use and impact in education
( ARACIP makes no references to the ICT evaluation and doesn't have an online
system for evaluation ).

Such a methodology
is needed to inform decision makers on whether to expand or modify a particular
policy or programme and develop future actions.

The online system
could offer the possibility to schools to evaluate the grade in which ICT
is used and to suggest future steps.

The system to
implement the European indicators and benchmarks [10], Romania has to report
in EU and international programmes.

Open Source
Software

Some specific actions
related to open source software could be:

implement
pilot programmes in schools to evaluate the using of OS

encourage
the use of open source software in schools and in educational institutions
for operating systems, applications, for virtual learning environments and
content management systems, for open educational content development

the
training programmes for teachers and administrators to contain open source
solutions presentations and applications, not only proprietary solutions

teach
pupils and students skills, not specific applications; the ICT and Technological
Education manuals to present both proprietary and OS solutions

implement
a dedicated website ( or an area on the Ministry's website ) which provides
technical support, download area, best cases sharing, online communities
for actors from education systems and other practitioners

The educational content
which already exists, mainly in AeL, should be used more intensive by teachers
and students: connections with curricula, the skills they develop should
be more clear; encourage and support the sharing of best practices - could
be published on the MERY website, and aggregated from other sites, blogs
of educators.

Partnership with European Schoolnet and eTwinning
Schools and participation in projects related to OER, presented above. Schools
to be informed and stimulated to participate. It seems that in the autumn
Romania will be a partner in the eTwinning programme, with ISE as the national
coordinator ( update: in October 1st, Romania has become partner
). Also the possible partnership with Romania appears in European
Schoolnet - Work Programme 2007 [20].

Create a repository with
the educational projects in which Romanian schools and educational organizations
have participated, such as Leonardo, Socrates, eContent programmes: trained
human resources, gained experience and skills, produced materials could
be used, projects could be continued or new ones could be started.

Partnership
with publishers, broadcasters, libraries, cultural institutions to provide
access to their own resources.

Implement an online system
for collaborative production of open educational resources by teachers and
students, based on Web2.0 collaborative technologies. OER can make a valuable
contribution to a diversified supply of learning resources, supporting methodological
diversity, and promoting the individualization of the learning process:

content organized by tags,
specifying target groups, disciplines, skills, types of activities in which
to be used; define quality criteria; possibility for peer review, user comments
and ratings, best practices sharing. It is not necessary that the resource
to be created and uploaded on this platform, but it is possible that a link
to a resource elsewhere created by user is shared, and then validated with
the other users

collaborative tools to
create materials; templates could be provided

community - users
profiles could include interests, name, location, skills, inte-rests specified
and searched by tags; users to be able to work together for produ-cing educational
materials, communicating in discussions forums, and using the collaborative
tools; support also for blogs, wikis, RSS feeds

training - self-paced
tutorials, but also online courses could be organized for teachers and students
on this platform.

In general, the teachers
training programmes should contain topics related to OER, new licenses and
tools to create educational materials in a collaborative manner.

Start with a pilot program to investigate
the impact on education of a 21th century open school, having an
integrated online platform, based on open source solutions and open source resources
and practices:

spaces
for communities of learning and interest dynamically created

traditional
courses supported by a virtual environment with online resources and discussions,
being accessible from anywhere, anytime, from home too, open also to parents
to monitor their children's progress

online
tool to assess pupils knowledge and skills, and to provide online guidance
and materials for development

support
for pupils ePorfolios which will be ongoing developed during their lifelong
learning; learners set up and develop their own ePortfolio for documenting
and reflecting on the progress and results of their study work

school
online resources accessible to the community

online
projects collaboratively developed with other schools

blogs,
wikis to share experience.

Teachers
Training - flexibility, online courses, new technologies

The
standard for ICT skills for teachers to take into account the new skills
recommended by EC, required to collaborate, to share practice, to use the
new technologies, to moderate online environments.

During
the training programmes, teachers should be able to know and practice new
collaborative and communication technologies.

The training programmes for teachers to contain open source solutions
presentations and applications, not only proprietary solutions; also OER, new licenses, tools to collaboratively
create educational materials.

The
possibility to acreditate online courses would assure flexible in-service
training, assuring the tailoring to the specific needs, and would give examples
of good practices

Competences
developed via formal, informal and non-formal to be recognized, as recommended
by EC.

Implement
an online system to assess teachers ICT competencies and to offer guidance
for future development.